Words
by I'm-Reading
Summary: It'd been a year since she came here and she hadn't spoken a word. EC/RH
1. Crimson

**Words**

**Summary: It had been a year since she came her and she hadn't spoken a word. EC/RH**

It had been a year since she came here and she hadn't spoken a word. It wasn't that she was incapable; he could tell that she wasn't from her mind. She preferred silence to speech. She wished she was dead, and he thought it was the worst thing that he had seen done to anybody.

She plotted her revenge in silence. He was the only person that knew of it besides her. He didn't stop her when she left. Just helped her clean the blood of her hands when she came back. She wept silent tears in his arms, and only she knew why, for she would not share it with him, even in her mind.

"Why did you help?" where the first words that came out of her mouth since she had reawakened.

He didn't know, so he didn't answer.

"You don't like me."

It was a statement not a question. Her voice was soft and wispy from disuse, but it still had the velvety smooth coating that came with what she was. This seemed to annoy and surprise he. He guessed that she hadn't heard her new voice before. He guessed that she wanted her silent vigile to have done more damage to the beautiful voice that came from her mouth.

"No," he answered.

He wasn't sure what he meant. No he didn't like or no he did. She was silent and strong. But the look in her still red eyes was vulnerable, as was her mind. As she looked at him, she spoke.

"You didn't like me the moment Carlisle changed me. You thought I was worthless, and you thought I deserved to be dead. You'd heard about me before we'd even met and you thought I was a worthless airhead. I should have died."

He was silent. She took his silence as agreement and she sunk to the hard wooden floor.

"You haven't spoken," he said softly.

"There was no need to," she said, averting her eyes so she didn't have to look at him.

"I don't know you," he said.

She looked up at him, red eyes meeting black.

"Yes you do. You know me as well as I know myself. You've watched me more than you watch Carlisle and Esmé. You've already formed an opinion of me."

"You spend most of you time in front of a mirror," he said as if that made an excuse of his poor opinion of her.

She snorted, blonde hair flying of her face. He absentmindedly tucked it behind her ear; as if it was something he did everyday. She ignored it.

"My reflection fascinates me," she said.

"Some would call that vain," he responded.

She snorted again and he absentmindedly thought that even from her background she wasn't very ladylike. He found that he liked that about her.

"I look different than I did when I was human," was all she said.

He waited for more, but it didn't come. There was a long silence. He slid to the floor next to her. She didn't look quite as vulnerable as before. He had something he had to ask her, something that she hadn't thought about, so he had always wondered.

"Did you love him?"

She looked up in surprise. Her eyes startled and panicked. Her mind had gone into overdrive and her breath came in quick short spurts.

"No," she said aloud, but her mind told a different story.

_It was the first time she had met Royce. It was late in the summer of her seventeenth year and she was _

_silly and shallow. She was surrounded by both boy and girl admirers and she loved it. Laughing at their _

_jokes and flipping her hair in a way where everyone sighed. She thought she was the top of the world._

_ The sun shone straight overhead and the day was beautiful._

_One man stood apart from all the others. He was only a year older at eighteen and he was beautiful. His _

_smile entranced her. He was someone that matched her in beauty and his eyes followed her every move._

_ For the first time she felt a blush creep across her lips. And when their eyes caught she smiled at him in a_

_ way that she never smiled at any admirers and he smiled too in a way that made her heart skip a beat. _

_She'd opened her heart already and he was going to tear it apart. His name was Royce King._

"It's okay to love him," he said calmly.

"No, it's not," she sniffled, looking more vulnerable than he had ever seen her.

He gathered her up in his arms and she lay there softly. Letting out tears that could never fall and he knew that if she had been human his shirt would have been soaked. But as it was it was perfectly dry. She pounded small fists against his chest and he was mildly surprised to find that it hurt. He ignored it; she was just a child in vampire standards. Barely older than a newborn. But it still surprised him that such a delicate and beautiful person could hurt him.

"Why did I love him?" she cried, and though her voice was loud in his standards, for a human it was merely a casual tone..

He could feel Esmé's surprise at the soprano's voice in the house. He could also see that she had the sense to let it be.

"Love is irrational," he said calmly and he could tell it frustrated her that he was so calm. He could also tell she was going to say something of it.

"What do you know of love?" she said pushing him away.

She stood up and her eyes shone with anger, and he could tell she was ready for a fight. He thought that she was so different from what he had seen of her over the past year; he found that he liked her much better.

"I loved my mother. I love Esmé. I love Carlisle. I love you."

She narrowed her eyes and he saw a hint of fear flash across her eyes.

"You don't love me," she said, shaking her head, "You hate me."

She was certain of that and it seemed to calm her. Reassure her.

He shook his head, too.

"I don't hate you. You need someone to love you."

"Not you," she said. She seemed certain of this, "Not yet."

"Who?" he asked, because he wanted to know.

"Not you," she said.

"Why?"

She shook her head again, seeming to want to return to her silent solitude. He wouldn't let her. He took her shoulders in his hands. She seemed to flinch from the contact.

"Don't give up," he said, "You can't let one man ruin your life."

She laughed. And there was no happiness in it. It was all bitterness. She shook his hands off.

"What life? My life was stolen from me."

"You have to hold on," he said. He was certain of this. As certain as she was that he didn't love her. He wasn't sure if he did.

She laughed again.

"Come on. Carlisle told me about you. He said that you hated this life. He said that you never wanted to live after you were changed. He told me that you do nothing. Just sit in your room. You think I'm pathetic look at yourself."

He hadn't known Carlisle had told her that. She had spirit. He could give her that.

"Rosalie," he said, because he didn't have anything else to say.

The fire drained from her eyes.

"Edward," she said, because that's all she could say.


	2. Butterscotch

She threw away her mirror. He found it in a broken pile outside her window. He didn't say anything he just bought her a new one. She flipped it around so the dull side faced her, so she didn't have to see herself anymore.

He came and sat next to her on the bed. She hadn't spoken a word since they'd last talked, which had been several months ago. He found it odd that he hadn't either.

"Some say breaking mirrors is seven years of bad luck," he said softly.

She looked up from the book she's previously been flipping through.

He could tell she hadn't really been reading it; it was just an excuse not to have to look into his eyes. Her eyes had turned topaz and he wondered if that fact had caused her to break her mirror.

"I'm not superstitious," she said icily

She held his gaze for a moment until he turned away. He couldn't stand to see the resentment there in her eyes.

"Why did you break it?" he said.

"I didn't want to look at myself anymore," was all she'd say.

"I told you, I wasn't going to give up on you. That hasn't changed."

She looked at him and the expression in her eyes was different than any emotion he'd seen in them before.

"And I told you, you need to look at yourself."

He sighed and turned away, gliding to the mirror and flipping it so that he could see his reflection. He saw her in the mirror as she turned back to her book, presumably ignoring him. He wasn't fooled. He examined himself in the mirror and let out a sigh. His eyes were a steely black and his face was pale and gaunt.

"Hunt with me?" he whispered but he knew she heard him.

"I hunted last week," she said and deliberately turned a page in her book. She wasn't reading.

"I know that," he said and his voice remained calm, even though he knew she knew he was annoyed with her. It caused her to smirk.

"We _are _started school soon, you must know that."

He smirk turned to a scowl and he smiled. She swung her legs over the bed and stood up, the unread book sliding to the floor.

"A hunt wouldn't be a bad idea," was all she said.

They left in silence, and strangely for them it wasn't awkward. They ran and for a moment he forgot who he was running with, just enjoying the wind running through his hair, the sun touching his face. He tasted the watery scent of a herd of buffalo, the sweet scent cutting through the air. He veered to the right and he felt her more than saw her follow him. He landed softly where a female was drinking from a small stream.

"I'm sorry, friend," he said softly before his fangs were at her neck and her warm blood was flowing in his mouth.

He stepped away from the corpse and turned towards Rosalie. She was standing beside the body of another buffalo. Blood flowed down her dress and covered her face. Even after a year she still had trouble hunting neatly. But underneath the gore her cheeks were slightly flushed and her eyes were brighter than he had seen them.

"Have you seen yourself?" he asked her as they headed back.

"Have you not been listening?" she said and he found that he liked sarcastic Rosalie better than the brooding Rosalie, he still hadn't found out why she moped.

"I don't like to look at myself anymore."

"Look one more time," he said before heading up the stairs of the house to his room.

She followed him warily, as far behind him as her speed allowed. He smiled slightly as he entered his room. She entered hers as well and sat at the mirror. She smiled as she saw her reflection, as if seeing an old friend. She wiped the blood of her face with a dry corner of her dress and studied herself more closely and gasped when she looked at her eyes. They were a pretty shade of butterscotch as light as a summers day. And she found that she liked them much better this way. In his room Edward smiled, the mirror would remain.


End file.
